Special characters in String variable sent from php.

Question

Hello. Assuming that I send some String variable from php into flash:
AS3:
var MyImportedString:String;
var variables_page_text:URLVariables = new URLVariables();
var varSend_page_text:URLRequest = new URLRequest("MyPHP.php");
varSend_page_text.method = URLRequestMethod.POST;
varSend_page_text.data = variables_page_text;
var varLoader_page_text:URLLoader = new URLLoader;
varLoader_page_text.dataFormat = URLLoaderDataFormat.VARIABLES;
varLoader_page_text.addEventListener(Event.COMPLETE, var_comp_page_text);
varLoader_page_text.load(varSend_page_text);
function var_comp_page_text(event:Event):void {
    MyImportedString =  event.target.data.MyVariable;
php:
<?php
header('Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8');
$MyString = "some tekst &";
print "MyVariable=" . $MyString;
?>
   I've noticed that the special character '&' residing inside String, throws an error:  #2101: The String passed to URLVariables.decode() must be a URL-encoded query string containing name/value pairs.
  My first thought was, it has something to do with html entities, but other entities (like <> or ") don't throw any error. Besides, the use of php functions like htmlentities(); or html_entity_decode(); doesn't make any difference in this case:
print "MyVariable=" . htmlentities($MyString);
or
print "MyVariable=" . html_entity_decode($MyString);
  I've also noticed that characters like '%', '^', '+' don't show up at all;
  What does it mean? Any ideas?
  Reagards.

Answer 1

Thank You 'moccamaximum'.
Ok. So here is the solution (php function posted by 'moccamaximum' does the trick):
AS3:
var MyImportedString:String;
var variables_page_text:URLVariables = new URLVariables();
var varSend_page_text:URLRequest = new URLRequest("MyPHP.php");
varSend_page_text.method = URLRequestMethod.POST;
varSend_page_text.data = variables_page_text;
var varLoader_page_text:URLLoader = new URLLoader;
varLoader_page_text.dataFormat = URLLoaderDataFormat.VARIABLES;
varLoader_page_text.addEventListener(Event.COMPLETE, var_comp_page_text);
varLoader_page_text.load(varSend_page_text);
function var_comp_page_text(event:Event):void {
    MyImportedString =  event.target.data.MyVariable;
     trace(MyImportedString);        // Output:  some text &%^+
php:
<?php
header('Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8');
$MyString = "some text &%^+";
print "MyVariable=" . flash_encode($MyString);
function flash_encode($string){
     $string = rawurlencode(utf8_encode($string));
     $string = str_replace("%C2%96", "-", $string);
     $string = str_replace("%C2%91", "%27", $string);
     $string = str_replace("%C2%92", "%27", $string);
     $string = str_replace("%C2%82", "%27", $string);
     $string = str_replace("%C2%93", "%22", $string);
     $string = str_replace("%C2%94", "%22", $string);
     $string = str_replace("%C2%84", "%22", $string);
     $string = str_replace("%C2%8B", "%C2%AB", $string);
     $string = str_replace("%C2%9B", "%C2%BB", $string);
     return $string;
?>